2024-25 School year

For the 2024-25 school year, the Colonial Fund purchased much-needed equipment for the Manufacturing and BioMedical Pathway programs at Shrewsbury High school, and supported 8 many Career Exploration programs across elementary, middle and high schools.

Purchased: Manufacturing Equipment, HAAS desktop CNC Mill

The Colonial Fund was used to purchase a HAAS desktop CNC mill, an essential piece of equipment for the new class, Computer Integrated Manufacturing.  This class is one of three in Shrewsbury High Schools new Manufacturing Pathway.  The Haas Desktop Mill is used by many schools and technical colleges and is the perfect machine for classrooms to teach the basic principles of programming and operating a CNC mill.  The Haas brand of manufacturing equipment is beneficial as well as they provide additional resources to teachers and students, including certifications that will be transferable to the workplace.

Purchased: Upgraded Engineering computers 

Using Colonial Funds and some additional grant funding, twenty outdated computers in the Engineering department were purchased and equipped with engineering design software for the Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Engineering courses. This was critical for teaching CAD and engineering design to high school students in the PLTW program.

Transportation for Career Exploration events

Thanks to the Colonial Fund and CTE funding, high school students were able to attend Manufacturing Mashup, New England Sports Management Summit, Charles River Labs Open House, and "Senior Scoop" (a collaborative event uniting high school seniors from across central MA who are still considering their post-secondary options with nearby businesses eager to recruit fresh talent.)

Hosted 8 separate Career Exploration events

• Capstone Introduction Breakfast
• Community Partners Breakfast (See more information below)
• Discovery Ed STEM presentation (See more information below)
• Health Fair Fall and Spring (See more information below)
• Shrewsbury High School Career Fair
• Oak Middle School Career Day
• Capstone Reception

AbbVie Tour, June 2025

On June 18th, a group of 20 Shrewsbury High School students toured the AbbVie Bioresearch Center in Worcester, MA.  During their tour, students learned first-hand from engineers and researchers, about the Cell Line Development Automation lab, Comparative Medicine in the Vivarium and Research, Development and Production.  

Cell Line Development Automation: Cell line development is the first step in S&T Biologics to generate therapeutic proteins, where the cellular machinery of the host cells is hijacked to produce a specific protein of interest. The journey starts in our labs with a single cell in nanoliter scale and continues with expansion into milliliters in a screening process that lasts many months. To automate the laborious lab tasks, our labs are equipped with state-of-the art high-throughput robotic platforms, where our team is responsible to design/maintain/operate these systems. Following scale-up, the best producing cell line reaches GMP for production in thousand-liter scale bioreactors.

Comparative Medicine: Comparative Medicine provides veterinary care, in vivo scientific technical support, and daily husbandry and care for all laboratory animals at AbbVie Bioresearch Center. It also ensures that properly trained scientists perform all animal model-based research and development conducted at AbbVie Bioresearch Center in a humane, regulatory-compliant, scientifically sound and socially acceptable manner. The department has primary responsibility for assuring that the Animal Care Program meets the standards for continued accreditation by the Association for the Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) and is compliant with all applicable regulations.

Science and Technology Biologics Development and Launch (S&TBDL): The S&T team function as a scientific development and support team that moves biologics products through our clinical pipeline to launch to approval to make a significant impact to our patients. Our teams are Cell Line Development, responsible for cloning vectors into research cell lines, Cell Culture development who grow the cell lines to large quantities with media and bioreactor studies, the Pilot Lab who make toxicology runs to test the minimum safe dosage of our products and provide harvest materials to Purification Development. Purification studies the various ways to increase the product purity and identity which is then analyzed and confirmed by our Analytical Development team. Supporting the documentation of this is our CMC Sciences team, and in support of our Commercial manufacturing is our MSAT group. Lab Operations supports all non-scientific activities that are required to support the labs overall.

Lunch and Learn, Oak Middle School, November 2024 -  May 2025

The Lunch and Learn program takes place every Friday during the school year, offering students a relaxed and interactive environment to explore different career paths. During these sessions, students can ask questions and engage with professionals from various fields. Guest speakers, often community members or alumni, volunteer their time to share insights about their careers and help students discover potential future opportunities. Over the course of the year, 555 students met with guest speakers from 27 different careers. 
 

 

Kevin Mailman, SHS '92, police chief                      SELCO lineman, Jeff Proctor, Will Ambach '21

 

Caroline Macomber, Financia Advisor                   Kelly Doering, PhD, LifeSciences Scientist

  

Subha Shankar, Software Engineer                   Kaleigh Keohane, SHS '15, Wildlands Restoration Proj Mgr

  

Martha Deering, SHS 1967, Actress, Designer.           Jena Adams, Public Health

   

David Lambert, Lic Mental Health Counselor          Katie McBrayer, SHS '14, Aerospace Engineer

  

Melania Nynka, Astrophysicist at MIT                      Tiffany Wilson, Massage Therapist, Entrepreneur

  

Heather Forchilli, Central One Branch Mgr.             Daniell Boland, Control Point HVAC

 

Lunch and Learn, Shrewsbury High School, October 2024 - March 2025

  

Abhinav Garg, Product Manager                           David Pirovich, SHS '10, Biochemist at Allorion Therapeutics

 

Police Chief Anderson, SHS '86                             Nima Patel, Dental Hygienist

 

Pravin Nair, Security Solution Architect, Amazon       Tricia Healey, Physical Therapist

 Sera Perrotta, Charles River Labs

 

Health Fair (Shrewsbury High School), December 10, 2024 and April 15, 2025

Overview. The first annual Health Fair at SHS, organized by Health Teacher Erin Burtnyk, aimed to provide Grade 11 Health students with access to community resources that support health and well-being. The event focused on developing essential health skills, including accessing reliable health information and services, analyzing influences, and effective communication. As part of the fair, students researched a chronic disease, created tri-fold posters, and identified both risk and protective factors related to their topic. They also connected their findings to a local community resource that addresses a specific risk factor, highlighting its role in promoting health.

  

Worcester DA, Public Health office                   Shrewsbury Youth and Family Services           Learning CPR from Shrewsbury Fire

  

          Nutre Nutrition                                        LUK, improving the lives of youth and families       A student's diabetes presentation

 

A student's brain cancer presentation.               Alzheimer's Association

DetecTogether

DetecTogether gave a presentation outlining three important steps that both students and adults can take to increase cancer awareness.  DetecTogether "saves lives by teaching people how to recognize the early warning signs of cancer and activate healthcare."

  

 

Discovery Ed Presentation (Oak Middle School), November 14, 2024

Both 7th and 8th graders participated in a 2 hour "Discovery Ed" presentation sponsored by Charles River Labs in Shrewsbury.  50 scientists, veterinarians and employees (including a 2020 SHS alum!) traveled to Oak Middle School (OMS) to present a variety of careers available in their industry.  During the introductory assembly, both 7th and 8th grade students participated in an engaging and informative session focused on career exploration. The event began with an introduction from the CRL team, which included a fun and memorable moment featuring a therapy dog, who was also available in person, for students to meet and pet.

Students were then introduced to Discovery Education and the concept of the Massachusetts Career Clusters (MC), providing context for the activities ahead. A brief video was shown to further frame the importance of career exploration. Next, students heard from four inspiring professionals in a “How Did I Get Here?” segment, which highlighted each person's career journey. Trinity Scanlon, a veterinarian; Revathi Jayaraman, a tech lead for digital projects; Matt Lame, a manager of in-life technicians; and Alana Halstead, an in-life colony manager, each shared three-minute stories about their unique career paths and experiences.

To wrap up the assembly, students participated in an interactive Career Game with fun prizes, reinforcing what they had learned in a lively and engaging way. The session concluded with students returning to their classrooms to perform experiments either in "Polymers and controlled release medication" (8th grade) or "Aseptic technique" (7th grade).  Experiments were presented by employees and scientists from Charles River. The event successfully sparked curiosity and excitement about future career possibilities among students.

  

 

 

                                                    (Polymer Experiment)

Community Partnership Breakfast, October 10, 2024

      

The Annual Community Partnership Breakfast highlights Shrewsbury High School’s dedication to Innovation Career Pathways, Career Technical Education (CTE), and career exploration, ensuring all students have access to meaningful, real-world learning opportunities. Community members and business leaders from a wide range of industries were invited to learn how SHS connects students to hands-on experiences through both coursework and external programs. Attendees also heard directly from students who share how these opportunities have made a lasting impact on their personal and academic growth.

To expand these offerings, SHS encourages community and business partners to get involved by providing site visits, job shadowing, internships, or employment opportunities. The event reinforces the vital role of school, community, and industry partnerships in preparing students for future success through experiential learning and career readiness.